Monday, February 29, 2016

This is a weird little story. It's a Hal story. But it's also a not-Hal story that might have its roots in other Green Lantern stories that I've never read. It seems Green Lantern isn't human? He's some thing called a Moppet that pretends to be Hal Jordan? Or something.

Anyway, Hal gets his ass kicked because he doesn't know how to deal with or treat women, especially ones named Carol. But the story ends one panel too soon so that the readers think that Hal Jordan is out of the fight. But seriously? You cannot defeat Green Lantern by cutting off the hand with the ring on it and throwing it into space! That ring is too smart to be fooled by that! Although maybe Hal's ring isn't. It's so used to him just punching stuff that it probably wouldn't notice that the fist had been disconnected from the brain.

The Key to the Fortress of Solitude? This story obviously takes place in a universe of which DC Comics is ashamed.

Rating: +1 Ranking.

These may be fictional versions of fictional characters but they're up there among the best portrayals of Batman and Superman I've read. Sure, they've only appeared for one issue and things could go downhill quickly but I liked them this issue. I genuinely liked their characterizations here.

Batman acknowledges his faults and praises Carrie's work as Batman and/or Robin. He's still Batman so of course he doesn't tell her and only gives her warm fuzzies while she's sleeping (or, you know, pretending to. Probably because she knows she won't get praise while conscious. And Batman probably knows she's pretending but tells her anyway because it's some kind of game where they all save face by acting like idiots instead of honest people who care about each other). Batman knows he's needed. He knows Superman is needed. He knows they need help to save the world and he's not willing to be that version of Batman everybody seems to love. You know, the one where Batman does everything himself and staunchly refuses help but acquiesces readily when Batgirl waggles her finger at him.

Superman has taken a time out from the world because he and Batman almost destroyed it. Some people might look at this version and think, "What a puss! Superman would never abandon the world! So dumb!" But think about it. This is what I've been asking Superman to do for nearly four years now! He cannot save the world if he's constantly the most dangerous thing in it. And while I hate that modern writers have treated him as a dangerous weapon, I accept that all the stories being told simply prove that he's too dangerous to run amok on Earth. He's constantly mind-controlled or turned into Doomsday or having his powers stolen and used against him or being turned into a magic slave. Encasing himself in solid ice and locking himself away (I'm sure the front door was locked before his daughter came by to steal Kandor) was the only way to protect the Earth from himself. Right up until he knows that the Earth is in danger because of his pets and he steps up to take responsibility. The DC Youniverse could do worse than this Superman trapped in ice. Oh wait. It currently is doing worse than that.

The Kandor threat is a nice touch because even if I'm tired of bad Kryptonians coming out of nowhere to attack Earth, it's a believable setup to have a handful of villainous Kandorians out of a whole city full of them. Having Wonderman (Supergirl's daughter! She took her mother's first name and father's last name. At least in my imagination) turn against him works because she's got Daddy Issues due to Absent Father Syndrome.

Why is it older Batman is always so much better than late twenties/early thirties Batman? Oh wait. I know the answer to that! I just won't say it because I don't want to offend people in their late twenties and early thirties by performing clique maintenance!

I think these adult coloring book covers were a message to colorists. "See? The fans can do your stupid job."

Rating: No change.

The Darkseid War has officially gone on for too long. You can tell because one of the characters is having a baby and that's always the death knell for a sitcom and/or a war. Geoff Johns really didn't know where he was going with this when he began it, did he? He just sat in a bar and made a list of bullet points of things he thought would make fans come in their pants.

Kill Darkseid.

Make Batman sit in a chair.

Have a Mother Box try to fuck Hal Jordan.

Have a race between The Flash and Black Racer.

Let Lex rule Apokolips

Explain Darkseid's chair fetish by making the Mobius Chair the Anti-monitor's chair which passes on the Anti-Life Equation through a person's buttocks.

Have Ultraman boof some Kryptonite.

Let Wonder Woman narrate so I can have her point out the similarities between epics of old and this story that I'm writing which will surely be a modern day epic.

Comment on Aquaman by leaving him out completely. Fucking loser.

Buy a bunch more hats with the money I make.

The Justice League spends most of this issue punching Anti-Beings in the face. I think that usually causes the universe to explode due to some made-up antimatter/matter thing but it's okay for this story. Also a big section of Gotham has been Crisis on Infinite Earthed so that might be a big deal later. You know what? I doubt it will be. Fuck the people of Gotham. They know what they're risking by living there.

It's as if DC Comics knows all of Deathstroke's fans are imbeciles who will buy any piece of shit story with which he's associated. But they also know Deathstroke's fans who will put up with infinite levels of shit writing are a limited resource so guess who shows up at the end of this book to pull in more idiotic fans? Red Hood! They already milked the Harley Quinn fans (guest starring in two different stories in the first year!) so they've probably learned lesson.

If I had any indication that this comic book wasn't taking itself as seriously as I'm pretty fucking sure it's taking itself, the reveal of Lawman would have been on my top hilarious moments list of whatever year this is. I suppose intent doesn't really matter, right? It was still hilarious! Holy shit, Lawman is a character in the wrong decade! And what's with his kidnapping of Rose Wilson who doesn't give a shit about her father (although she might now that a new writer is on the book. Deathstroke's continuity doesn't usually survive changes in the writer)? I suppose it really only matters how many shits Slade gives for Rose. But that's also been shown to be practically zero no matter how many times Tony S. Daniel wrote captions where Deathstroke was all, "I love my children Tulip and the boy, um, what's his name?"

Most of this issue is Deathstroke and Mercy dealing with a bunch of Bizarros by technobabbling up a solution. It might have been a successful moment for people who are sexually aroused by Bizarros without shirts but otherwise it may as well have been cut from the story. Although then the book wouldn't have a plot or any reason for non-Deathstroke fans to buy it. Every issue's cover should just be a picture of the guest star with a black background because every issue is just about showcasing another DC character simply so somebody will buy the issue. Next issue's cover is bound to be Red Hood standing over an unconscious Deathstroke so that all of the Red Hood fans will drop their boners and pick up next month's issue.

Enough, DC. Just fucking enough with everybody being suspicious of heroes. You've got this sick obsession with trying to bring in real world problems and suspicions into what is a complete fantasy setting. Readers will willingly believe that people trust the heroes simply because they're heroes. It's way more believable than everybody blaming the heroes for disasters that obviously weren't caused by the heroes but some asshole reporter like Iris or Lois had to question because they had Pulitzers in their eyes.

Vendettia and Jensen, you guys realize what you're asking the reader to believe, right? Everybody trusts known criminals and violent thugs more than they trust the city's greatest hero who has never done anything but save the city time and time again. Okay, he's also spent a few years battling various evil versions of himself so that the timeline wouldn't get scr...you know what? I don't want to remember that bullshit. I'm forgetting those awful stories right now. I'm also not willing to keep reading superhero comic books where the hero has become demonized by the populace, government, and media. So get this shit straightened out by Issue #50 or I'm done with this crap.

That probably isn't much of a threat because when my attention is turned toward The Flash comic book, I'm usually saying really awful things about it. DC would probably rather I just dropped this book altogether. You know, in a fantasy world where DC Comics even knows I exist or I had any kind of power at all to get people to stop reading stupid fucking books.

On the plus side, I didn't have to look at Brett Booth art. Not that the art in this issue did anything for me. But at least I didn't see one character whose legs were five times longer than their torso.

This comic book will probably never be worth reading until Eddie Berganza is fired. I suppose that will never happen because nobody ever seems to lose their job in comic books. They're only ever driven away from the mainstream comic books because of shit people like Eddie Berganza. And since shit people are the only ones to stick around, they hire all of their shit friends who don't know that they're all a bunch of shit.

Just to be clear, I'm not calling the current creative team on Superman Loves Wonder Woman shit. These are people I know can do a good job if left to do their own thing. But when they caught up in Eddie Berganza's Shit Hurricane of Suck, what are they going to do? I suppose they're just going to finish writing this shit story and hopefully they'll get a chance to write something that isn't tied into all of these stupid ideas the shit editors of the Superman books keep coming up with.

Superman kills Metallo in this issue. Just rips out his heart and kills him. Takes one life to save the lives of many. I hope every issue of Batman Loves Superman will now be twenty pages of Batman muttering "murderer" under his breath. Because Batman would have found another way! He wouldn't have let sentimentality turn him into a murderer the way Superman just did in this issue!

I'm mostly joking about the whole Superman killed a guy thing although it's true. Even in this kind of situation, Batman is so stuck on his claim that he's not a killer that he would have waited for Metallo to die of natural causes before taking his kryptonite heart. And by then, Vandal would have enslaved the entire planet. But at least Batman could continue to claim he'd never killed anybody. Technically, that is! Because I'm fairly certain sitting around waiting for somebody to die without doing anything to try to save their lives isn't really any better than murder.

This issue would have been better if Metallo's cock were made out of kryptonite.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

What the fuck is Dick allergic to and why then would he smear it all over his lips? No wait. I just realized what the answer is. I just got it. Totally makes sense.

Rating: No change.

Guest stars aplenty this issue: Frankenstein, Grifter, Maxwell Lord, Rubber of the Japanese Metal Men. It's enough to make comic book fans read that list and go, "Enh." More likely they'd say "meh" but I refuse to use that term because it's the rudest response and everybody who uses it knows it. It's merely said to point out that the person the "meh" is directed at has made no point or comment worth reading ever. I'd rather somebody respond to something I write with "You're a fucking cunt."

I also can't stand when somebody responds to somebody with a response that the person previously mentioned they can't stand. So go ahead and respond to this in that way. You're only hurting yourself by being funny in the way 99% of people are funny. It's the equivalent of seeing somebody mopping a floor at the store and then pretending to slip. You're an idiot.

Hmm. This is a lousy review, isn't it? Since I'm on the internet and I'm supposed to be writing about Dick Grayson, I feel like I should be way more passionate about it. I should make gifs of me jerking off while watching Young Justice. I should write in-depth essays on the psychosexual growth of his character from Batman's sidekick to leader of the Teen Titans to Nightwing on his own to super spy. I should litter this thing with footnotes and stolen images simply to prove that I'm a huge fan and I have something important to say about him that only a true fan would figure out. I feel like I should change my URL to fuckyeahdickgrayson except that (and every variation on it) is already taken by people yearning to prove that they are the biggest Dick Grayson fan at the expense of every other good thing in their lives.

Here's my super analytical piece concerning Grayson: his name is an anagram for R Gay Son. That probably won't make it into his Wikipedia page, will it

Speaking of Wikipedia, I have a feeling that I would never be able to be friends with anybody who spends a lot of time updating the site. Just read the discussion on whether or not Dick should be referred to as "Dick Grayson" or "Richard John Grayson" in the article if you want to instantly hate two people whom you've never met.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Is this a joke comic book? Was Neal Adams purposefully hired to write a Superman comic book that reads like a low budget porn? As opposed to a high budget porn which is only a theoretical thought experiment. I'm not simply asking this question because the title causes every immature person reading comic books (i.e., all of them) to glance over at the place where their friend would be if they had one and titter like a moron. I'm asking because the Parademons invade by saying to "Hit it hard for Darkseid!" And Lois Lane, looking like she's got both of her hands halfway up inside of her, screams, "Something big is emerging from that so-called 'boom tube'". It's little turns of phrase that I might ignore if the comic book hadn't been called "The Coming of the Supermen" like when Lois asks "Did they come in ships?" and I spit fizzy water all over the comic book (because I'm a comic book reader and thus immature).

The title is spelled out with semen.

I see Tony Bedard helped with the script but didn't get a credit on the cover so maybe he decided to undermine the entire project with his filthy sex talk. Neal Adams is from a time when nobody raised an eyebrow when Batman was given a sidekick named Dick so of course he didn't notice how disgusting Bedard was making his Superman story.

Lois, dressed as if Dan Jurgens designed her outfit and did her hair, begins the story by reminding everybody how she broke the story of Superman because she's the fucking greatest. And now she's breaking a new story about more Supermen coming to Earth. It makes her so wet that she begins masturbating on camera as she reports Parademons invading the backdoor of Lex Tower (which looks like a huge cock and balls). Kalibak is leading the invasion so don't be surprised if I insert a yawn or two into my commentary as I go along.

*YAWN*

Just practicing! I'm not bored yet! I'm still sort of turned on by Lois's look as she reported Apokolips's penetration of Lex's stronghold.

Yes, Lois, yes! Rub it right out of existence, you horny bitch!

Before I get too far away from that part where I basically called Neal Adams an old man, I want to apologize. He's doing the art so there's nobody else to blame for the sexual imagery he's laying down in conjunction with the ribald dialogue. For example, the picture of Lois losing her uterus while watching things emerge from a huge tube. Another example--which I'm not scanning because I'm sure you all have a copy of this comic book beside you since you were at the comic book store and were all, "Oh look! Superman in his red underwear! Suck it, New 52!"--is when Kalibak lands and ejaculates all over Lexcorps' security guards with the power axe emerging from his crotch. It even makes the same sound as a penis ejaculating after weeks of withholding its sticky treasure: CHOOOM!

This shit is fucking filthy. Who do I write to at DC to complain about this not being written earlier?

The new Supermen arrive to fuck Kalibak (I'm guessing based on the tone of the comic book so far!). Every single one of the new Supermen look exactly like the kind of porn actor hired to do porn versions of Hollywood movies simply because they kind of, vaguely, look like the star of the original movie while also having a fat cock. Lois continues to report the action live as her vagina steams up the camera's lens.

Lois is all, "These men may be wearing Superman's uniform and delivering pizza and have huge fucking bulges but they're no Superman! Where is the King of Krypton, the Prince of Pussy Pleasing, the Master of Mutual Masturbation? Well, people at home watching this broadcast because you love the way my tits look in a suit and not for the reason you should be watching this which is because I'm the best fucking reporter this world has ever seen, Superman was last seen somewhere in the Middle East! I'd be more specific but since I'm mostly broadcasting to Americans, why confuse you all by mentioning countries you've never heard of?"

Superman is currently laughing about a puppy about to get the shit blown out of it in that Middle Eastern location that really doesn't need to be any more specific than that because the readers get what that means, right? "Middle East." It's what a certain percentage of my family members on Facebook would refer to as a "non-Christian shithole". Well, if anybody would know anything about Christian shitholes, it's them! Superman only decides to save the puppy when the puppy's boy is in danger. I know it's been said before and I really hate repeating what everybody and their no-love-from-Superman dog has said but Superman really is a dick.

Superman doesn't like to get political so he flat out lies to this kid. "Oh silly Rafi! War is everywhere and it's only because a few people want it. Huge swathes of Americans aren't constantly saying how this area should be turned into glass, no matter what you've heard or is actually true! I mean, some people don't even have a dog and you're complaining about losing everything else? Stop being such a jerk, Rafi!"

A huge demon appears to tell Superman to adopt Rafi and his dog. I think the demon might be a certain prophet but having never seen an artist's depiction of him, I can't be sure. The dog's name is Isa which is Jesus in Islam which probably means something but I'm getting distracted by possible religious themes in what is almost certainly a porn parody. Somebody else can write about the end times religious shit going down here.

You're getting a little too on the nose with your religious commentary, Adams. How about talking about the Supermen coming some more? Loads and loads more!

Superman asks the demon his name while mockingly referring to him as Mister "Messenger" so I think I was probably right about the demon being Neal Adams' depiction of Muhammad (you know, the Messenger of Allah). Rafi says of this messenger, "I know he looks scary, Superman, but he does not feel scary." If anybody else is interested in a reading of The Coming of the Supermen's religious undertones, go find some other critic that wants to sound smart. I'm getting back into all of the porn stuff as soon as Superman heads back to Metropolis. And I hope I don't get Neal Adams in trouble for suggesting that he drew a caricature of Muhammad! That's just my silly and questionably intelligent opinion.

She means they don't quite fill the red underwear.

It's nice to see that in the DC Youniverse, nobody in the media is afraid of causing widespread panic by showing people the truth of what's happening in their world. An attack by Apokolips? Oh, no big deal. That just means big ratings for Lois Lane as she somehow gets cameras on the scene showing every angle while also interviewing Lex live at the scene and using the entire event for self-promotion. I'm sure nobody in Metropolis is terrified that they're all likely to die in yet another invasion. At least this one seems centered around Lex Luthor so maybe now everybody will come out against Lex and blame him for making Metropolis unsafe.

Clark Kent leaves Rafi and Isa with Jimmy Olsen as he goes to help stop Kalibak's raid on Lex Luthor's back door. Superman chases off Kalibak and the Parademons. Before he can speak with the other Supermen, he's taken on a "journey of the mind" by his Middle Eastern Demon Friend, Mu. They head back ten thousand years into the past to spy on the ancient Egyptians. I guess this is going to be some Ancient Aliens bullshit now. Nobody has done anything vaguely pornographic for some pages now! I'm really becoming disappointed (i.e., flaccid).

In Ancient Egypt, Superman learns that the Egyptians followed a different god of which no evidence exists because fucking anthropologists must suck. His name is Yuga Khan! But that's all the demon can reveal because he has limits on what he can tell Superman. The limits make no sense because it's easier to write a mystery with a shackled guide. "I can only tell you enough to keep the reader interested but not tell you everything so you can save the world! At least not until we've raked in all the cash. That'll happen around Issue Five. People still around for Issue Five will probably stick around for Issue Six so we can over-explain the mysteries then."

The Coming of Supermen #1 Rating: 24 out of 50-something. I hate a lot of things about comic books. But one thing I sort of love about comic books is when old school writers come back and write a comic book that's more like current comic books but retain much of the old school feel. Len Wein is doing that in Swamp Thing and Neal Adams captures some of that here. It has the look and feel of a story from the Silver Age but without all of the fucked up nonsensical written-to-children craziness you might find in those older books. Okay, it's got some of that. But in a modern way that makes it less eye-rollery and more nostalgia-massagery. It gets a little silly but that's because Adams isn't taking it too seriously which is a failing of many modern superhero writers. Like the Supermen who are coming. They're played as kind of idiotic but in an innocent way and not in a way that makes them the butt of the joke (yet!). I don't think I want all of my Superman comic books to have this tone but there's definitely room for one or two like this (especially since a quarter of DC's books star Superman). Although this story takes place in the eighties, right? So that's fucking weird!

I don't have something to say about everything. Sometimes things happen in front of me and I don't even think wickedly funny smartass things at all! Sometimes I just keep going about my business singing the Spider-man cartoon theme in my head and avoiding all eye contact. What I'm trying to prepare you for is this: I have nothing to say about this comic book.

At least nothing interesting or complimentary! Ha ha! That was a twist! What I have to say is that I'm underwhelmed by this comic book. I like Batgirl but everybody else are just chocolate frosting spattered water color imitations of the characters they used to be. I would make more sense if I had something interesting to say!

Next issue, Keith and J.M. are bringing back Larfleeze because I guess there were some Larfleeze jokes that they didn't get to repeat ten whole times.

Friday, February 26, 2016

It annoys me when a comic book company green lights a cover of a comic book that could have been drawn by me.

Rating: Probably -1 Ranking even though I haven't opened the cover yet. I have feelings about this book. Rather, I have nearly no feelings about it and will probably be thoroughly bored while reading it.

Remember when a man stalked and killed a young man named Trayvon Martin and we all decided that we were fine with people believing the man was within his rights and should be allowed to go free while we, angry and upset, did nothing more than write comments like this online and pretend like we were fed up with it even though we've continually just did nothing more than be angry since then? Apparently this incident happened exactly four years ago today even though I only discovered that when I consulted Lord Google to make sure I was spelling Trayvon's name correctly because that would be embarrassing if I got that wrong and there's nothing worse in America than being embarrassed on the internet. I guess my body has an internal rage alarm clock. Good thing something is acknowledging the rage since I'm too busy reading comic books to try and make the world a better place.

Cyborg and Captain Marvel (Fuck calling Billy "Shazam" when he's got his Man Pants on) beat up on a guy named Zookeeper who would be lucky to wind up dying on the Suicide Squad. The jokes they make at his expense continue the same tired trend of this comic book where Cyborg believes he's wittier than he really is. He keeps saying he's a genius and that might be true in that he can do a really complicated math problem or build a super computer that turns farts into fuel. But he's terrible at cracking wise at other people's expense.

His father Silas Stone must be the same kind of genius because he rebuilt his son out of alien technology and yet at breakfast he asks his son to pass the syrup while he's holding the syrup bottle.

This is why dumb people think smart people are so dumb! Because not smart people write smart characters but can't write them in a way that's smart because the writer isn't smart enough to write a convincing smart person! Also dumb people always invent all sorts of caveats to what "smart" actually means. So if they don't know anything and are completely ignorant of even the smallest scientific facts (like, you know, an American), they claim that at least they have common sense and street smarts unlike smart people who are sooooooo stupid when it comes to doing everything that isn't answering questions on Jeopardy. Or what about those insecure people who have to label a bunch of different ways for a person to be smart so they can find a category to fit into? "Well, I'm smart at organizing books on shelves! Genius at it, even! Oops, I shat myself!"

The worst thing about being the smartest person on the internet is that nobody believes me!

It's not even a good joke since half the creatures are reptiles or amphibians!

The narrative of the story keeps jumping back in time so after Cyborg makes that hilarious joke about the situation being hairy, the scene jumps back to 59 days previous to an "undisclosed location." Why would nobody disclose the location to the omniscient narrator? You'd think at least the narrator would know where every scene was taking place. This just feels like lazy editing! The editor has decided they don't want to take a stand and declare some new organization's location in the DC Youniverse. Which totally makes sense since nobody even knows what state Gotham is in.

The secret facility is where Cyborg's real enemies are gathered. They're congressmen and lawmakers who want to pass laws limiting people's access to cybernetics because a black man owns some. It's not the cybernetics that make them feel unsafe. It's the fact that a black man owns more than they do! So time to pass a law declaring them illegal! At least for certain people. You know what certain people I mean.

Let me translate this for the dumb people who accidentally stumbled upon my blog and haven't been offended enough to stop reading yet! "Technology that only a few elite people understand" means "science and math is hard to understand and the people who understand it are assholes who think they're so much better than me because I can't even figure out which way to put a Pop Tart into the toaster." "Unregulated forays into dangerous territories" means "facts that are demonstrably true but which I can't understand because I just learned that Kit Kats shouldn't be shoved up my anus." Things which "can be easily compromised and turned against humanity" means "minorities can use them against us!"

The guy with the eyepatch (an indicator of bad guyness unless his name is Snake Plissken and then he's a double bad guy bluff good guy. Maybe it depends which eye the eyepatch is on) doesn't understand what Senator Champlin is saying so he says Senator Champlin isn't saying anything. That's a total dumb guy tactic! You know how when a really smart person zings a dumb guy, the dumb guy thinks he'll really get one over on the smart guy by pretending not to understand the zinger which only makes the dumb guy look dumber but he's too dumb to realize it so he keeps using that tactic.

Oh Billy. That's the joke Cyborg was making. You didn't make the joke you just made it less subtle. Not that it was subtle in the first place. And since that's the case, Cyborg is complimenting his own joke.

I'm glad David Walker constantly has other characters pointing out that somebody is making a joke or saying something funny or I would have missed every fucking joke since this comic book began. So far in this issue alone (I can't remember how often he did it in the other issues but I've pointed it out before), there's been the one I just scanned, the time Captain Marvel repeated one of Cyborg's jokes and said it was hilarious, Zookeeper screaming that he's not a joke, Cyborg's dad pointing out Cyborg's ability to keep telling jokes in the face of disaster, and the Zookeeper screaming at Cyborg to stop making jokes. I'd complain that David Walker doesn't need to keep reminding us when things are funny but since none of these moments have actually been funny, he'd better keep it up before I take this thing too seriously.

Your penis, right? You're going to show him your penis! Let me know now if I should laugh at it!

The issue ends with the government's goons going after Cyborg because he didn't properly register his cybernetics with them. Fucking government! Always trying to take away the black man's teeth! Like in that Rudolph Christmas special where Santa defangs the Abominable Snowman and puts him in chains. Bumble, my ass. I know what Cornelius really means when he calls it a Bumble. You can't snow me with your "white truths", you fucking Snowman!

Cyborg #9 Rating: No change. I know I put the rating at the beginning and pre-rated the comic book but that was because I didn't realize this was going to turn into an actual commentary. It was less boring than previous issues of Cyborg although David Walker seriously needs to put a cap on how many times somebody points out that something was a joke. It takes up about 25 percent of the dialogue in this thing!

Tony S. Daniel hits on a way to make a young girl not look like an older woman who he's drawing like a young girl: tomboy her up!

Rating: No change.

This is the issue that says things that have already been said in lots of other comic books in other places. Once again, a Batman villain has gone through the same kinds of things that young Bruce Wayne went through but--surprise, surprise!--they turned into a jerk! But Mother gets to parallel Batman maybe even more than most of the others because she went the Batman route and began training young people traumatized by life to follow in her footsteps. So now the mirror can be held up to Batman's sidekicks so that readers can stop pointing out how awful putting children in danger is and they can go, "Oh! Batman is doing the right thing! Um, at least compated to what Mother is doing!"

The Harper Row aspect of the story just seems like somebody spoke up in an editorial meeting and asked, "Why is Batman so adverse to training Harper Row when he's taken in so many other kid sidekicks? Sexist!" But now we see why he kept turning her away! Because he was trying to deny that Mother had any influence on Harper's life at all. He was also trying to do to Harper what Alfred has been doing to Bruce in the recent issues of Batman. Deny them their destiny just so that they can be boring prats! Or something. I might have gotten the point of it all wrong.

I'm just about to the "A Lonely Place of Dying" in the 80s New Titans comic books but I won't be reading it. Too bad because it would be interesting to reflect on Batman and his sidekicks through the lens of that story. The reason I won't be reading it is complicated and...well, okay it's not complicated but I'm not going to go into it here so it'll seem more mysterious and less boring than it really is.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Why was this President Bitch Part One?! Where was President Bitch?! I think I spent too much time on the shower scene! You know, absorbing its feminism! Don't believe that I spent all that time on the "exiting stasis" scene! That's a dirty filthy lie! It takes way bigger dicks than that to get me to pretend I'm not heterosexual!

I don't remember who Whitney was because I'm old and can't remember books from month to month. Especially when the last time I read an issue of this book's main story was back in December. I sort of think I've got it figured out based on context. At least I remembered who Shithead was! That guy is hilarious! He's all, "Look at me! I'm peeping on naked women! Oh no! The naked women are kicking my ass! Eeep! Now I'm being forced to work with them and spy on all the men! Ack! I'm Non-Compliant!"

All the words in the back of the magazine probably make some really interesting points but there weren't enough naked lady pictures to space out the words so I totally didn't read any of it. Although I probably should because that letter from that guy claiming he was totally into equality and then shat all over feminists and expected to be congratulated was comedy gold! I wonder if he meant to send that to Penthouse Forums?

Meiko's father's name means "truth" and her mother's name means "dream". Discuss!

I don't know what Meiko's name or her sister Mirai's name mean because I don't know all of the Japanese words! I know Makoto because that was Sailor Jupiter's name and I know everything about the Sailor Scouts including their blood types. And I know yume because I love dreams and dreaming and dreaming about dreams. I love dreams so much that there's that flashback scene in the Cowboy Bebop movie (I think it was the movie and not one of the shows (wait, was there a movie?! Um, anyway)) where whats-his-name remembers somebody dying or passing out in the rain or something? The dying character speaks but you don't hear what the character says. As I watched that scene, I actually read the cartoon character's lips and said to the Non-Certified Spouse, "He said dream! Yume!" Later in the show, the scene is replayed and that's what was said. I'd like to continue patting myself on the back for reading a cartoon character's lips (even though I really only could have guessed "yume", "risu", or "shiri") but I think I should probably point out that that was some spot on fucking animation!

Monday, February 22, 2016

Why can't he be the Mecha Martianhunter? Or just the Martian Martianhunter? Why does he have to be any kind of hunter at all?

Rating: No change.

While reading the first few pages of this story, I began thinking, "How are they going to finish this rambling tale that went off the tracks a few issues ago if the comic book is about John Constantine throwing up in a toilet? Then the action returned to Mars where Ma'alefa'ak's mech was quickly taken over by J'onn and he began to rally his different aspects. I began thinking, "Oh! Hey! Maybe this story can wrap up this issue so I can stop being bored and get back to enjoying it!" But then I remembered that the Constantine part happened where Rob Williams actually wrote the Constantine's magic level was "Joe Strummer." What the fuck is that supposed to mean? His magic level is aging, past its prime, and only popular with aging punks and the kind of people who love to talk about music but nobody ever wants to talk music with them because they're insufferable bastards?

Um, so anyway, the story will continue in the next issue where J'onn will finally learn the reason for his existence and why he's a weapon and how he's meant to save Mars but will eventually betray it for thirty Oreos.

As a final note, I think Rob Williams doesn't know how telescopes work. He's used them in two different scenes that have become the two most unrealistic scenes in a comic book about an alien using blood magic to bring an ancient Mars full of sentient Martians into the present to merge with the Earth.

In this issue, Harley Quinn puts some punctuation on her break-up with The Joker. The only problem with having that story told in this comic book is that it doesn't have any bearing on the regular DC Youniverse. But I think it offers a clue as to what's going on in this book. This comic book is just Harley's subconscious, perfect life. It's what she dreams about while locked away in Belle Reve or fantasizes about while in the showers (that's mostly the Poison Ivy parts). This is the life she wants to be able to live but she just can't bring herself to be this person.

Harley ultimately wants to do this to The Joker. She craves the ability to say no to him. But it can only happen in her head and the proof to that is that The Joker is currently not The Joker. He's some guy who hangs out on a park bench begging Bruce Wayne not to become Batman. He hasn't been in Arkham for a long time.

Harley dreams of having a family so she winds up in a building packed with strange people she's conjured up, and she hires a bunch of people to be in her gang. She dreams of having stability so she has a normal job counseling people in a retirement home. She still craves action so she joins a Roller Derby league that actually encourages hyper-violence and, occasionally, death. She craves a father figure and so she dreams up Sy Borgman whose metaphor as a construct is plain as day. She even dreams of living in a comic book city where some of her favorite comic book heroes like Spider-man, She-hulk, and Daredevil live!

It's possible that this entire comic book is just an experiment being conducted on her by Amanda Waller and one of her secret Task Force X members, Doctor Destiny. Using his materioptikon, he puts Harley into the most normal setting he can and lets her imagination run wild. The experiment is probably meant to help recover her sanity so that she's useful to Amanda's team and not simply a loose cannon.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Did you know the gargoyles in the Gargoyle cartoon show were really grotesques? You could tell because they weren't drooling and vomiting in every other scene.

Rating: No change.

Batgirl visits the Secret Six world which is the suburbs of Burnside or something. She's trying to get a warning to Strix because Lady Shiva is hunting Strix. Imagine how much easier it would be to send Strix a message if the Birds of Prey had actually purchased her an iPad instead of just giving her that shitty pad of paper and the hardened raccoon poop to scratch out messages. If they'd actually wanted to communicate with her, they would have spent a few extra bucks setting her up with a Waynetech Communication Tablet or a qPad or a Kord Industries Scarab Tablet. I'm pretty sure you can receive email on all of those devices! You know on what item you can't receive an email warning you of a dangerous assasin hunting you? A ninety-nine cent pad of paper! The Birds of Prey were jerks.

Strix is busy getting a makeover because it's time she learned that she should accept who she is. But she has to learn that from a puppet because nobody can accept who they are until somebody else tells them it's okay to accept who they are. That's just logic.

Ralph also receives a message from Sue because she's finally remembered how much she loves his elastic dick and hates listening to stupid fucking riddles.

A fun time is had by all and Batgirl may have achieved her very first partner-induced orgasm while rolling around on the grass with Catman. I'd say it's a high probability that that happened so I'm going to pencil it in as fact in the Batgirl Entry in my copy of Who's Who.

First Non-Masturbatory Orgasm: Catman in Secret Six #11 (while a goat with a fly's head watched)

This is the least subtle comment on the patriarchy I've ever seen on a comic book cover.

So it turns out that I still have enough time in my super busy life of leveling up in Call of Duty and getting my ass kicked playing Blood Bowl to do a few long form comic book commentaries every now and then. I couldn't resist doing one on an issue of Wonder Woman actually drawn by David Finch because he isn't as good at art as all of the comic book fans ever think he is. Am I that naked kid in the Emperor's New Clothes? Wait. The kid was the naked one, right?

Um, basically I realize I'm eager to do at least one per week. The question is which comic book do I write about each week? Well, that's up to you, the people! I mean the smart people. Stupid people reading this don't get an opinion. Just send me a note in some way letting me know which comic book in each coming up batch you'd like me to eviscerate and the one with the most requests will get a proper write-up. Or improper write-up. You know, whatever the fuck it is I do in these things.

According to the cover of this issue, women should be taking care of babies while men (symbolized by the screaming penis behind her) rampage about the land, penis in the lead, destroying civilization. That seems about right. The difference between men and women isn't that women don't like sex as much as men do. The difference is that women have standards and won't fuck anything that comes near them with an erect phallus. Some nights they will! But those are dangerous nights because you fuck a guy who isn't used to being fucked and it's like feeding a stray cat. That pathetic loser will never leave your back door no matter how many times you squirt him with the hose. When a woman just wants a good fuck, why do you think she'd go for a guy who looks like he has no experience with vaginas? She's going after some guy who thinks he's using her for the night because he'll probably be good in bed and he'll definitely not bother her the next day when she just wants to get on with her life. The proverbial "nice" guy isn't sexually shunned because he's too nice (mostly because he usually isn't). It's because he obviously (even on the most shallow of levels) has nothing to offer a woman who craves a fucking orgasm. Nice guys do know that women aren't just looking to let a guy rut on them for ten seconds before making a stupid face and apologizing profusely, right? They want to be fucked! F-U-C-K-E-D! Brains melting inside their heads because they've got three fingers inside them, a thumb on the clit, and a tongue in their asshole. Teaching a guy to be good at sex is like training a monkey you don't want in your fucking house because it eats all of your food and won't get a job and makes you drive everywhere while never paying for gas because it blew all of its money on Monkey Magic the Gathering cards.

This is the part where I pretend I'm one of those guys who are really good at sex and not that monkey because I don't know anything about Magic the Gathering due to fucking so much. I don't tap mountains! I tap ass! Did that make anybody wet?

Because he's a lazy man!

Zeke is actually Zeus and everybody knows it but they're still treating him as if he's a fragile human toddler. If Zeus suddenly shakes like he's having a seizure (even as a baby), it's probably because he's having an orgasm. The only weird part is that he isn't raping somebody as a toddler. It's pretty much his only hobby. It's weird to think how many rape stories I read in elementary school because I was so interested in mythology. In the seventies, I don't think anybody cared what kind of books were in the elementary school library. Although I went to Haman the Satanic Elementary School, so I shouldn't be surprised that along with all of the The Wizard of Oz books and dozens of mythology books, I also checked out The Amityville Horror from it. Go Haman Satanic Eagles!

Hera believes that Zeke is sick because Mount Olympus is in chaos. It's in less chaos than it was while The First Born was loose but it's still in some chaos because the God of Peace has decided that Peace is bullshit and means nothing without war. So, yes, the God of Peace is desperate for no peace at all because she's cuckoo. Hera has no solution to save the baby but she knows somebody who probably does! No, not the God of Doctors (probably because he's a male and also he has really creepy feet)! Gaia, the Mother God of All Mothers! Who better to take care of a baby than the ultimate woman! See? Just like how I interpreted the cover!

Gaia's temple is deep within the earth because vaginas.

Gaia ignores Wonder Woman's prayers because Wonder Woman isn't offering anything in return. She's just all, "I've never acknowledged you ever in my entire existence but now I've heard that you can solve a problem I have so here I am praying to you!" And when Gaia doesn't answer her prayer, Wonder Woman begins to vandalize the temple by punching the statue of Gaia and chipping it. Is that how she thinks you ask for favors from gods?! You demand them and when your prayer isn't answered, you threaten and insult them?! Why does Gaia suddenly owe Wonder Woman anything? I don't hate a lot of people but I really hate people who believe their needs are so important that everybody should get on board with them or else they're dicks. Also, I actually hate a lot of people and that bit about how I don't was a lie.

Wonder Woman encounters Hecate which was one of my favorite Magic the Gathering cards.

Okay, it was actually Hecatomb and I was remembering the name wrong. Probably because I was having so much sex in the nineties and not attending Magic Tournaments at the Red Lion in San Jose at all.

Hecate offers to help Wonder Woman for a price. That's more like it! Why would anybody do anything for anybody else for free?! That's fucking nuts. Hecate wants a few of Hera's precious orbs she keeps in her scrying pool which is the weirdest way to describe eggs and ovaries I've ever heard. But Wonder Woman is all, "I won't steal them! I'll be rational about it!" And Hecate is all, "You can't be rational when dealing with the gods! Haven't you noticed Hera is married to a toddler and the Goddess of Peace is a war monger and you're the Goddess of War and you're just trying to hug everybody? None of it makes any fucking sense! Here, let me show you!" She then goes on to show Wonder Woman a vision of Hera acting suspicious. Which, of course, Wonder Woman simply takes as a true vision! Why are heroes in comic books always willing to believe anything anybody tells them?! What a bunch of gullible hicks!

"I am not the Goddess of Lies! I'm the Goddess of other things that totally don't make me seem suspicious and evil like Witchcraft and Necromancy! I also look like a lizard and did you ever hear that I tried to kill your mother but only made Derinoe old and bitter? Or something like that. I mean, if you've heard that, it was obviously a lie and told by somebody with a total anti-necromancy agenda!"

What follows is a scene where Diana dives into Hera's scrying pool which is a long, wet tunnel and then harvests Hera's last three orbs. It's totally clinical and not as sexy as I was hoping it would be after realizing that Diana was going to have to explore Hera's secret sanctum.

After harvesting Hera's orbs, Diana discovers a secret staircase leading down into Olympus. That's where she's attacked by the giant penis man on the cover! He was probably attracted to the orbs! He knocks out Diana and hauls her off to do whatever angry giant penises do to unconscious women. I wouldn't know having never pledged a fraternity.

Wonder Woman #49 Rating: No change! Seriously, no change! That's not a recommendation though because that's no change in rank of a comic that's ranked 40 out of 52 DC Comics (or somewhere near enough to 52 for me to not give a shit about the exact number). David Finch's art was at the level that would cause people to look at it and think, "He's really good and probably doesn't screw shit up all the time!" But mostly that's because he only drew a couple of panels with men in them. He likes drawing women and spends a lot of time getting them right, especially when they're wearing almost no clothes the way Hera was. I did like how everything in this book was a metaphor for genitals and reproductive organs though. Except for Zeke. He's just a metaphor for out of control lust and rampant fucking. Which, now that I think about it, is what all toddlers are metaphors for!

Friday, February 19, 2016

Don't worry, Talia. Just scrape his sperm out of the bat-condom he threw in the trash.

Rating: No change.

Damian finally gets around to seeing what his father's up to (pretending Batman doesn't exist so he can fuck Julie Madison and pretend he's happy). It's been a long time coming and I've been particularly looking forward to it. But since Duke had already done the thing that Damian was meant to do (tell Bruce to stop fucking Julie Madison because he's not really happy), I knew I would be surprised by whatever he did. And I guess I was. I mean, the surprising thing was that I didn't give a shit about Damian watching his father while he slept. No, the reunion I had really been hoping for happened at the end of the comic book! Damian finally getting around to visiting his pets! Lucky for Alfred, he's kept them all in good health.

I know you hate whimsy, DC (even if you think you don't and are still patting yourself on the back for publishing the mostly awful and not really very entertaining Bat-Mite and Bizarro books) but can't you make some room for some super pet stories again? Sure it's not cool or hip or epic or savage or fuddly-doo. Yet! See, that's your problem, DC! You're all about trying to keep up with the cool. Your shit is so off fleek you keep it in a music box with a little pink ballerina. You need to take some shit and make it the thing everybody wants to be! Stop pointing at Batgirl. You can't be happy about a change of character that you're constantly grousing about! You know you hate that books like Gotham Academy and Batgirl are popular because they're not fucking grimdark! Get with the times and embrace cute, you sock drawer!

You know what you need, DC? A monthly Tig the Vampire book where Tig is a somewhat immature eighteen year old immortal who loves cute shit and can't get laid no matter how horny she is. Maybe Maps could be a regular guest star because Tig the Vampire is totally into roleplaying and practicing kissing on her friends. Also she should express her love for a mysterious werefish named Grunion Guy who she totally wants to bang tons!

This is how I get out of tickets. The Poison Ivy costume has totally paid for itself.

Rating: -1 Ranking.

There's a moment in this comic book where Poison Ivy mentions that Pitbulls are misunderstood and she hates abusers and then she kills the owner of the dogs that got out and barked loudly at her and her coworker. This might be an example of why vigilantism isn't as great as Batman claims it is. Poison Ivy assumes the dogs have been badly treated because they got out of the yard and barked at some strangers. You know, the way dogs do. Then she goes to the supposed owner's house where some dog dishes and a chain are lying in the yard. The chain may have been used on the dogs but, at this point, totally an assumption. The barrel that the chain is coming out of could be the dog's house but, again, that's an assumption. And even if it is, maybe the dog loves barrels? Maybe it's got a nice carpet and squeak toy inside?

Anyway, Poison Ivy asks the man who answers the door if the dogs are his. He says, "Those stupid mutts? What have they done now?" So she kills him. Really? I've called the cat I loved most in the world worse names than "stupid mutts" when talking about him to strangers! Affectionately! And the "What have they done now?" could be because he totally doesn't want to miss out on another cute thing they did running around the neighborhood. I mean, at most, he's guilty of being negligent about getting his chain link fence fixed. Also he's guilty of having a chain link fence.

I'd like to defend this poor, probably innocent man because who else will? Certainly not the Poison Ivy fans who were cheering when she murdered somebody based on a whole string of assumptions she made. She could have at least asked some blades of grass if the dogs were being abused! She did no detective work at all! Hell, the dogs themselves prove she was wrong based on their behavior! They ran out growling and barking and then calmed down almost immediately when leashed by a vine and called a good doggie. That doesn't seem like the kind of reaction one would get from an abused Pitbull! And don't give me that bullshit about the dog finally being treated nicely so it acted nicely. That dog would have ripped her face off if it wanted to. Just like all dogs secretly want to because they're all assholes.

But as long as Amy Chu got her message out about how Pitbulls are misunderstood! As if that message isn't constantly being repeated ad nauseum on Facebook every single day!

My cat Smaug once beat up a Chihuahua and he was totally and completely loved. Some animals are just dicks and bullies and maybe racist. I think Smaug may have been a little bit racist.

I have to admit that I was proud of him though when I heard he beat up some lady's dog.

The other parts of this comic book were parts. I may have liked them better if I wasn't soured on the Pitbulls aren't bad message knocked upside my head. Although the part where the flowers gave birth was disgusting because I was really beginning to get aroused by the budding flower and then BLORT! Babies! Ew! They're worse than dogs!

Why is this even a comic book? It's just a first person monologue with lots of yellow ink splattered about.

The Fall
A Very Short Story by Cullen Bunn

Many mistakenly believe that I am without fear. They assume that if I control the emotion, I have conquered and abandoned it. It is a belief I have done little to discredit although nothing could be further from the truth. To instill fear, one must embrace it. One must walk amongst nightmares if one wishes to become a nightmare.

The Pale Bishop and his order have divested themselves of all emotion and, in so doing, they have been made strong. He seeks to burn my fear--my power--from my system to make me an empty servant to their order. And I am frightened. Frightened of losing myself...of feeling everything I've worked to attain slip through my fingers once again.

On Earth, the expanded ranks of the Sinestro Corps struggle to drive our enemies away. The Paling, though, are compelled by faith in emptiness. They will not be so easily turned. My lanterns--new and old--embrace their fear...follow it as surely as any believer follows their convictions, no matter what horrors are revealed to them.

I have felt the power of The Paling before...but not so intensely. My own emotions are amplified and turned against me. I revisit every terrible moment in my life simultaneously: the death of Arin Sur, the destruction of Korugar, my exile from the Green Lanterns. Every moment of weakness opening my mind for even greater horrors to come, mounting terror I know I could cast away if I only submit. Before, my resolve was bolstered by Parallax, the fear entity I had bound to my soul. Now, though, I am connected only to The Pale Bishop himself, a void, an abyss, an emptiness that could swallow me whole...or be explored.

Before I was a lantern, I was an archeologist [sic] and so I dig. I chase the last vestigial remnants of fear until I find something I can use. The Bishop--before he ascended to his position--when he stood among the Guardians of the Universe, when he looked upon the wellsprings of emotional energies and knew fear, I feel it right along with him. Terror that forced him to abandon the Guardians...to flee from their experimentation and to rid himself of all emotiong: of love, of anger, of hope, and of fear. Fear perhaps above all else. Fear that is with him still.

On Earth, my lanterns are unaware of the battle I fight. They are preoccupied with their own struggles. New lanterns conscripted into an effort to repel a global invasion. Veteran lanterns defending those they might have once tried to conquer. I wonder, though, if The Pale Vicars sense their master's moment of weakness. Does his fear flicker within them?

Like myself, The Bishop has fostered misinformation: the belief that he is without fear. But fear is what defines this being. Fear and all the other emotions it encompasses: love, hope, anger, compassion. All shadows of my domain of fear. I ignite these emotions within him and his defenses shatter.

The end!

See? It's all there! It's all fucking there! It's written out in a script that has no real need of the comic book attributes it wears like a feathered boa. Okay, I admit there's a bit more with Soranik and how she takes over as leader of the Sinestro Corps at the end because Sinestro "use up too much power" or something stupid. Get a fucking lantern and stick your ring in it, dum-dum!

There's also a part where all of the new recruit lanterns are being described with a quick phrase and the description of Harley is "crazy but cute." If I were going to just throw my cards down on the table and admit that I was a sexist pig, I'd have gone with "cuckoo but with a nice rack and a totally fuckable ass."

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Is this story going to be about police brutality? About the animosity the public feels for overly authoritarian police? A good cop facing hard decisions? Please just be about something! ANYTHING!

Rating: No change.

This comic book would do well to drop Khalid's Narration Boxes altogether. The main problem with the comic book is that Khalid is constantly hesitating or second guessing his situation which slows the plot to a crawl as Khalid does nothing. The Narration Boxes are simply enabling that horrendous aspect of his character! Although I can't say the comic book would be any better with panel after panel of silence as Khalid just stares at the problems in front of him and does nothing to help.

Okay, sometimes he does something to help! But it's just boring magic where he points and makes some mystic yellow waves and shit gets better. Writing magic characters is easy!

At one point he says--and I'm paraphrasing--"Positive statement...not!" Oh how not at all clever that is! Not! No wait. No not!

Doctor Fate spends most of his time flying around looking for the neighbor who wants to fuck him but he refuses to fuck. It's pretty exciting how he wonders how his powers work and then finds out how his powers work and then uses his powers to do the thing he wanted them to do. I learned a lot about the writing process and how apparently you don't really need to tell an interesting story to get a job working at DC Comics.

I have this recurring dream where I'm at an all-girl school for young assassins and I'm also young so it's not creepy because dreams are what they are. They all want to have sex with me and they keep tickling me which is weird because I actually would like to have sex and not to be tickled. But I'm wearing sweat pants and I'm overly concerned about getting an erection because I guess my dream self is an idiot and thinks it'd be embarrassing if all the girls who wanted to have sex with me saw I was physically excited about it. But the tickling quickly becomes girls just trying to grab my cock through my sweats. At this point, I really just have a super strong urge to pee and the young women attacking me are just getting on my nerves. At about that point, I wake up with a full bladder and feeling really annoyed at my dream self for not getting laid.

Maybe that wasn't a recurring dream but then why should I tell you the parts of my stories that are false? I did have some of that dream last night for real though. It's just I added the all-girl school assassin thing for some reason I can't think of at the moment. It was just one woman and I don't remember if she was somebody I knew or probably just Gillian Anderson.

One time when I was in my teens, I was at the ice skating rink and this girl with large breasts kept hanging on the back of me. I was wearing sweats which meant that I wasted most of my money to ice skate because I had to sit down the entire time. It was totally worth it. I think she even joked about going outside in the bushes with me but I couldn't stand up without everybody in the rink knowing that I really, really wanted to be in the bushes with her. I think maybe the embarrassment of other people knowing I was physically aroused kept me from a lot of super awesome sexy time action when I was younger. Stupid inhibitions! Why should I have cared what anybody thought?! I could have gotten a handy in a bush outside the mall!

This issue was called "Owl." Because the Owl is the opposite of the Bat. I think. I never thought of it that way but I've now been programmed to think that because of New 52 Batman. Owls are also good at getting exclusive stories for their internships.

Clark interviews Oliver Queen, Lex Luthor, Dick Grayson, and Bruce Wayne. Or sort of Bruce Wayne. Lois actually interviews Bruce Wayne but Clark interviews Batman which is totally a more accurate representation of the man. Everybody (including Lois and his mom!) give Clark a little piece of the man he will soon become. I think he learns a lot in this issue because I was flipping the pages thinking, "Why isn't anybody getting punched?! What kind of Superman comic book is this?!"

Now pretend I spent five pages discussing the stuff Clark learned and how it helped to form the man we will one day know and love to hate. Make sure you imagine it's super insightful because that's the kind of stuff I would come up with if I wanted to bother coming up with it. But why should I? Use your own stupid brain!

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Is it bad that I kind of want Dinah to die so that Bo Maeve takes her place?

Rating: -1 Ranking.

Have you ever read something that completely resonated with you and you just sat contemplating the work after you were through, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually exhausted? You just couldn't believe how somebody else somewhere out in the vastness of space and time was able to connect so completely to you that you were absolutely overwhelmed?

This isn't that. This is just a story about how Dinah is the heir to the Five Heaven Palms ultimate ninja move and how her aunt totally wants control of it. I've never been heir to anything unless you count my dad's fucked up sense of humor and my mother's extreme paranoia. But hey! Vixen is in this so I guess she recovered from that time New York fell on top of her in Justice League International!

I probably wouldn't have lowered the rating on this issue since it was simply regular old mediocre but the art was poopy. It reminded me of poop.

Oh, that was mean! I was being mean! The art just didn't agree with me! Maybe it was my lunch that didn't agree with me and I was just in a mood. I'm sorry for being mean, Sandy Jarrell. You're doing a great job. Keep up the good work! I mean, "good" for other people because it wasn't good for me. It was close! The word I would use to describe your art had two "o"s in it as well!

This story is a mystery about a mystery! The mystery is what the mystery is! It's basically the Titans running around going "Something weird is going on but we know nothing about anything but we do know something weird is going on and we're going to maybe try to figure that out maybe? No? Yes?" While they go around not knowing anything about the mystery that is mysterious, they begin to meet up with each other. It seems they once knew each other and had a team together and went on "adventures" but something happened to make those adventures nonexistent. I won't say what that event was that erased those adventures because I don't want to summon assholes who still type things like "Nu-52" or "I would eat out my own asshole if I were flexible enough and fuck DC Comics!"

In essence, the mystery is why did DC erase the history of the Titans in the first place? Some people think that was a mistake because they loved the characters and hate Lobdell's version of them. But those people are probably forgetting how awful Marv Wolfman's version of the Teen Titans truly was. I guess it's kind of a serviceable comic book for a company that really didn't know what it was doing in the early to mid eighties. But it doesn't hold up well enough to be re-remembered! Which I guess is why the Titans are remembering adventures that are even older than those adventures! Adventures in a time where they could actually battle a guy named Mister Twister and nobody's eyes would roll out of their head.

I once believed I enjoyed Marv Wolfman's Titans from the eighties. I should have kept that false memory alive and never gone back to reread that series! Although maybe it gets better after Issue #54, right? It must get better because I kept reading and buying it for another five years! Along with the Team Titans and Deathstork books!

Tim Seeley is writing? Does that mean an end to mediocre bullshit? Or am I about to start criticizing a writer I actually like?!

Rating: +1 Ranking.

Now, I wouldn't mind rating it higher but I'm taking a let's wait and see attitude. Overall, I liked the framing story much better than any of the previous framing stories for the Squad. Amanda explains it and sets up what to expect and she does it in a way in which her character would be expected to explain it. This might be some of her best characterization so far. Lawton explicitly has a death wish. Harley's a bit nuts but in a servicable way. Diablo I don't really fucking care about but I think he'll add a nice layer to the team. And Cheetah...well, whatever. She's sexy!

But...spoiler!...that lineup doesn't matter. Because they've all been killed by a mysterious super person! No, seriously! They're all dead. It was right there in the comic book on Waller's computer that monitors their vital signs! It was a flat red line and everything! So I guess Seeley needs to put together a new team and I hope it'll have New Wave working with Captain Boomerang because I can't get enough of women beating the shit out of Digger.

This might be only the second time I'm recommending picking up this comic book. I think it's finally going to start heading in the right direction. Although do I really need to recommend people pick this up when everybody is suddenly a fan of the Suicide Squad because it's going to be a movie? Where were they when Ostrander was writing this book and I was rereading it constantly because it was so fucking good?! Oh, that's right. Most of them probably weren't even born yet. Never mind!

This comic book isn't as sexy as the cover might have caused you to think it was. Huge manga wink!

Supergirl and Stargirlikov looked super cute in the last section of story. I was all, "This book is kind of entertaining but something is really missing!" And then the last few pages happened and the characters were super cute and I was all, "Oh yeah! That's what was missing! My boner!"

Some people probably review this comic book and point out its feminist qualities but let's face it! The real selling point is cute women wearing barely any clothes! Isn't it great how the male slash lesbian gaze can debase anything!?

I know, I know! I should approach comic books more seriously! How dare I make immature jokes about comic books! This shit is serious shit and shit! So I'm going to stop being an ass and present my favorite part of the story!

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

I get that the part where Lois Lane begins writing the new Earth-Too constitution with "In God We Trust" and then crosses it out is symbolic but it also makes Lois Lane look like a fucking dope. Why would that thought--beginning the new constitution with that phrase--even cross her mind?! Unless she's leaving that bit in! So she writes "In God We Trust" and then continues after a double-spaced gap with "Ha ha! That's how people saw the old world, right? Trusting the gods. Putting their faith in something other than themselves. But now we're on a different world. A new world. One created not by any god but by an interdimensional Machiavellian robotic monster! Which ultimately means the destiny of this planet must be shaped by those now living on it. It is up to us to trust ourselves, and to trust each other, to make this world a place where we can live in peace, prosperity, and the pursuit of sappiness."

And boy howdy do the people of Earth-Too need that speech! They're all fucking still living with the expectations of the Old World (you know, Earth-2!). They've just arrived on a new planet with only the technology and materials of the spaceships that brought them here and they're already trying to power the planet with oil and natural gas and shit dug up out of the earth! Hello! Your planet has two suns! TWO! Start upcycling your stupid spaceships into solar panels, you morons! Better yet, have Green Lantern make some for you with his magic, scary godlike powers! Oh, and isn't Mister Terrific down there? I hear he's the third smartest man in the world! He can build some shit to use the suns as a power source, right? Get those fucking Mister Terrific Balls in production already!

Earth-Too has about three million people on it and they're fighting over land rights. Are you kidding me?! If Green Lantern were a real hero, he'd just move the first city that becomes aggressive with another thousands of miles away to a new stretch of useless land (because apparently all the land is fucking useless). Who cares if somebody calls him a god or a fascist or a faggot? Okay, that last one was out of line. But still, who cares?! He can save lives and teach lessons!

I was hoping this was going to become a Justice Society book where the heroes all sit around a table and listen to Hawkman scream his fool head off about some non-traditional something bugging his bigoted ass. But instead it's about a bunch of heroes trying to build a new world in the face of a populace that are scared assholes without any fucking common sense. I hope the whole place blows up by issue thirteen.

I should also mention that whatever weird breeding program Fury has begun that's creating Amazons is also giving them some kind of weird hip dysplasia.

Monday, February 15, 2016

You Harley Quinn fans know you're being fleeced for every dollar DC Comics can wring out of you, right? I mean, I am too because I keep buying all of DC's comic books! But if I weren't buying them all, I certainly wouldn't be buying all of these Harley Quinn books. No matter how likeable the character may be, these books are all the same fluffy bullshit. It's like cotton candy! There's no substance to it! I mean, it does what it's supposed to do which is give you a moment's respite from the inevitability of your eventual death! And I suppose if you enjoy Harley reacting in the exact same way but with a slight variation on the words she uses, all of these Harley Quinn stories must make your underwear sticky. See? That's the kind of thing she would say! Over and over and over again! I don't like to think of myself as mature but I'm suddenly thinking I'm too mature for Amanda and Jimmy's Harley Quinn. If I have to have a cartoonish Harley, I'll take the original from the Batman animated series. I want my comic book Harley to be dark and dangerous and insane. Instead of playing with her beaver and Mike Cock, I'd rather she were fucking corpses and throwing babies off of skyscrapers.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

I could discuss Starfire or I could discuss how, at some point in the past (I think it was the day that Barack Obama was first elected), Republicans decided that the best way to do their job was to refuse to do their job. One of those topics makes me want to masturbate and the other one of those topics makes me want to engage in angry sodomy. Sodomy is such a good word. It's like somebody was all, "Hey, let's fuck!" And the other person was all, "You're not being clear enough. Which hole are we talking about?" And the other person was all, "Oh, you know, whatever you got that isn't the hole god intended to have a penis stuck in." And the other person was all, "So should we call that something else?" And the other person said, "Sure! How about sodomy as in 'so, do my other holes make you horny?'" And then the other person said, "Hey! Let's engage in sodomy!" And the other person was all, "You're not being clear enough. Which hole are we talking about?"

It's possible with all this attitude of refusing to do their jobs, Republicans are just admitting that they need managers. Can we put in a fourth branch of government: Middle Managers? Let's start voting in managers to keep the Republicans doing their job or else they can be fired by the person we voted to keep them on task. I vote for a bunch of nineteen year old fast food managers who just recently began to feel the sweet tang of power!

I wonder why god killed Antonin Scalia anyway? That god sure works in mysterious ways! You'd think god would have kept him alive forever since he was doing so much of god's work in the Supreme Court! You'd think with the power to punish all of the gays with so many natural disasters, god could at least keep Antonin Scalia alive for another twenty years to keep his awful agenda thriving in the Supreme Court! Maybe god isn't as powerful as all those closeted, self-hating gay men want me to believe!

Sorry for not talking about Starfire. But I masturbated four pages in because all the women had such perky tits and then I lost interest in it completely.

It's kind of unbelievable that this is an Ed Benes cover because The Joker's Daughter hardly has any boobs hanging out everywhere.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this cover was that it's a good thing Jay and Roy are fighting zombies because they're allowed to kill them without everybody getting all sourpuss faced at them. But then I realized something else: way too many stories these days deal with why the main character kills or doesn't kill (usually doesn't!). Can we all just accept that Batman isn't going to fucking kill anybody and stop having stories where he has to explain why he doesn't? Or he has to prove to a bad guy who thinks not killing is a weakness that the bad guy is wrong? The same goes for Superman! How often does a bad guy pipe up with some shit like "I've got the upper hand because I will actually kill and you are a right puss from Pusspuss, British Columbia!" You can tell my imaginary bad guy is stupid because he thinks Superman is Canadian!

Can DC just put up a poster in their offices with a list of things that we can all just take for granted? Let me start the list! Everybody else can add their own!

Things To Be Taken For Granted In Every Iteration of the DC Universe!
1. When the Metal Men are not in operation, Doc Magnus likes to stuff the Responsemeters up his rectum.

Let's build on this list, DC Fans! Not Marvel Fans allowed! You'll just make a mockery of it!

Currently in Red Hood Loves Arsenal's Junk, the Roy and The Joker's Daughter were kidnapped into Ann Nocenti's Nethers! Jason Todd has followed in the hopes of rescuing them (or at least The Joker's Daughter. Fuck Roy!). Things are going to really get crazy and interesting because the best writer at DC Comics is on the job: Scott Lobdell!

I wonder how much money Scott Lobdell is making off of the Age of Apocalypse X-men movie. He must get some kind of royalty, right? Wasn't he a big part of that garbage which is basically just more of the same from the X-men? Humans versus Mutants with a little Mutants versus Mutants because only good Mutants can stop the Bad Mutants from proving the fears of the Humans true! The Humans are just cowering, lower evolved garbagesicles.

I know! Because Scott Lobdell likes to play his scripts by ear so he changes the plot every month when he gets a new idea! Not that he had an old idea on where his old story was going. That's for pretentious writers who like to have themes and points to their stories! This is just a fun rollicking roller coaster ride of Roy Harper's Narration Joking and Jason Todd's constant whining about how dumb his partner is (while also acknowledging his big heart!).

This story is called "Harmed and Dangerous" because ha ha ha I can't breathe so funny.

Jason Todd is currently putting bullets in a new gang of bad guys who had a really witty name that I can't remember now. Hopefully Lobdell will reintroduce everybody during the first five pages that he always saves for recaps via the main character's super snarky and hilarious narration!

Oh yeah! They were the Iron Rule which isn't as witty as I remember it being. Maybe I'm just not getting the pun! Is it like the Golden Rule but harder?

As you can see, much like the Teen Titans, the Iron Rule takes care of its own. That's the most important thing to both groups! No wonder the Teen Titans seem like bad guys now. They really should start making helping people their first priority or at least move from a Superhero Comic Book to some kind of existentialist Indie rag about how hard it is to be a teenager.

Jason Todd makes sure to think about how he's going to defeat the Iron Rule by treating them as a single organism (something Ducra taught him!) so that when he defeats them the same old way (by punches and bullets and probably some kicks), it'll seem like it was a well-written answer to how he overcame this new problem.

Meanwhile, Roy Harper needs to get some Narration Joking in so it's his turn for a few pages. I forget what he was up to because I probably hated it. He's discovering an old stadium which is now underground because this area was flooded a hundred years ago and you know how when building are flooded they soon sink under the ground and into caverns so that they're not flooded anymore and the water stays above them and it's all very heady geology that's tough for a lot of people to understand so I'll stop explaining it.

No! Don't do it! It's not worth your sanity!

Roy stumbles upon Joker's Daughter being held captive by some asshole whose face she burned a grin on way back in that Catwoman series previously mentioned. That asshole's plan is to knock down a few pillars and cause Gotham to collapse into the Nethers. Which totally doesn't make any sense because the space is so huge that Gotham should have simply collapsed into it a long time ago. I hate the Gotham Underground. I like my comic books to be unbelievable but there's a line! And that line is almost always crossed by Ann Nocenti!

The Iron Rule were paid by Charon to kill everybody in the Nethers which makes less sense than anything else since Charon is going to bring Gotham down on their heads anyway. Speaking of which, he's going to bring it all down on his own head as well. I don't think he's thought his plan through very well. I also still don't know why he needs The Joker's Daughter. It's possible he mentioned it previously but why would I waste any brain matter remembering shit Lobdell wrote?

Jason Todd's battle with Iron Rule isn't any sort of epic. They get the upper hand. Then Jason Todd gets the upper hand by pointing out that he's following the training of Ducra and letting his body be the weapon. But then that totally fails even though it's not supposed to and he's caught by the Iron Rule. But then he somehow winds up on a ledge above them while one of the Iron Rule says, "That was some toss." I don't know who tossed him. I don't know what happened. But I do know that Jason Todd didn't survive this battle by his own skill. He might as well be dead because he's terrible at superheroing.

The Joker's Daughter tries to kill herself when she kills Charon by throwing him into the lava. But Roy saves her with a Save Somebody's Life Arrow and then it's time for the feelings even though this comic book gives me no reason to feel anything for any of these characters except irritation and annoyance.

Oh! Oh! I'm a stupid fucking fan who feels every feeling for Jason Todd because he's such a precious baby fluff and I can't tell when he's being written horribly because I've projected every one of my own issues onto him and he must be kept safe in the way that I like to believe I wasn't (even though I totally was and am really just blowing life with my parents way out of proportion)! Boo hoo! Heroics!

The story ends with Joker's Daughter leaving the rotting Joker face with the lava people and Roy thinking about his last mercenary group he ran until they went rogue: The Iron Rule! DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN!

Red Hood Loves Arsenal #9 Rating: No change. Here's how a Scott Lobdell book about youths goes: Lobdelled first page, title that's a bad pun and/or song title, snark, snark, snark, terrible jokes, terrible jokes, more irritating snark, bad joke, bad joke, snark, snark, killing that winds up not being killing because the Boys have changed their ways, bad snarky joke which irritates, moment where Jason Todd sees something in somebody else and wants to save them, moment where Roy Harper uses his experience as an alcoholic to help out, feeling of guilt and shame. Oh wait. That feeling of guilt and shame is just me after I'm done reading the comic book.

Don't forget to add stuff to the list of shit that should be taken for granted in the DC Universe, okay?